Convenience lenience: The only way I manage the juggle

This turn of phrase cropped up in a strategy session last week to describe something cross-category we are seeing continue to grow globally and wow, I wish I’d come up with it! I cannot sadly take the credit for this linguistic fancy footwork but it struck a chord so deep and I realised that I lean in so hard it’s a wonder I don’t have a neck injury.

Balancing work life and family life is always a challenge but it’s a challenge I’ve thrown myself at as if it were one of my past sporting endeavours. I’ve been reading lots of interesting articles recently about the impossibility of women ‘having it all…all of the time’ and I have to say I agree.

Something always has to give.

However, some brands show up for me in a way that means fewer things have to give in my day to day and enable to me to stay close to, if not entirely on, the rails. Convenience is often shorthand for quick but in my life it means so much more.

Step forward, NARS Cosmetics. Background being that my husband’s job as a teacher is the definition of inflexible and he leaves at 7.15am on the dot every day meaning I’m on the hook for getting myself and my 3 year-old out of the house on time. 1) This should be an Olympic sport and 2) there is absolutely no room for preening. NARS is not a brand that I have a particularly long history with but alongside trusty Tilbury, it’s taking up more and more real estate in my make up bag as my commute-friendly cosmetics brand of choice. So many of their products are multi taskers, well thought through and designed to be used with fingers meaning no fiddly applicators or chasing escaped lids on the grubby floor of the Bakerloo line. Thank you NARS for allowing my face to feel put together even if my mind isn’t!

Second is a brand new one for me. Parla. Now this is more of a safety net than a routine as I promise I genuinely do aspire to leaving the house with cleaned teeth every morning. However…these little toothpaste tabs developed by dentists with added probiotics make sure I don’t have to shamefully pop a bit of gum on the rare but hideous occasions that ‘not having it all’ really does extend to sacrificing oral hygiene.

The final slot is reserved for Deliveroo Hop. I’m sure I have subconsciously gravitated towards Hop because we are fortunate to have Deliveroo as a client so I am intimately acquainted with their quick commerce proposition. However, they’ve saved my bacon numerous times in those moments when I’m housebound, sleeping child upstairs and the cats have run out of food or the toilet has run out of paper. Hop basically allows me to be less organised and let things slip and I’m willing to pay a premium for that.

So there you have it, dirty laundry aired, the full gamut of my ‘convenience lenience’ and what it enables. It’s only going one way in my life but I’m interested to know how much others lean.

By: Fleur Horner

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